The Wandering Officer: Amulti-State Replication and Interstate Extension
“Wandering officers” are law enforcement officers who are fired by one department and later hired by another. According to prior research, they represent 2% of the law enforcement labor force in Florida and are twice as likely as other officers to commit misconduct. Using administrative data covering hundreds of thousands of officers, we replicate past results in eight additional states and find broadly similar patterns. We then provide suggestive evidence that firing and rehiring policy drive cross-state variation in the riskiness of wandering officers relative to those who have never been fired. Finally, we report the first estimates of wandering across state lines and find that this phenomenon is rare, at least in the region we study.
Policy Implications
Scholarly and political attention has emphasized building out national coordination mechanisms designed to stop the flow of wandering officers across state lines. While these efforts are important, our findings suggest that intrastate reforms, such as mandatory background checks, enhanced data collection, and disclosure obligations, may do more to reduce the risk that wandering officers pose.
About the Law and Economics Workshop
Michigan’s Law and Economics Workshop provides an opportunity for faculty and students from across the University to engage with cutting-edge law and economics research by leading scholars on a wide range of legal and policy topics.
Professors J.J. Prescott ([email protected]) and Jeff Zhang ([email protected]) organize the workshop. If you would like to receive workshop announcements, please contact Alex Wroble ([email protected]) and ask to have your name added to the workshop’s email list.